Each month, National Geographic magazine features breathtaking photographs in Visions of Earth. Browse through visions of the world as seen through a photographer's eye.

Photograph by Jasper Doest

December 2013

Japan—Jigokudani—“hell valley”—Monkey Park is known for its hot springs, which may feel more like heaven in subzero weather to the Japanese macaques that congregate there.

Photograph by Scott Olson, Getty Images

December 2013

United States—The loading dock of a warehouse on Chicago’s South Side resembled the South Pole after a five-alarm blaze on January 23, 2013. Met with single-digit temperatures, spray from the firefighters’ hoses soon turned to eerie ice art.

Photograph by Kacper Kowalski, Panos Pictures

December 2013

Poland—From the ground, it was just another line for the lift at Czarna Góra resort. But from a motorized paraglider, the skiers became bright brushstrokes on a snowy canvas. Photographer Kacper Kowalski says he seeks “to show daily situations in the abstract.”

Photograph by Amy Toensing

November 2013

Puerto Rico—Breezes rustle the ruffles of little dresses hung to dry in Utuado, a mountain town in the island’s rural heartland.

Photograph by Kitra Cahana

November 2013

Venezuela—Candles help summon the spirit of Maria Lionza, whose namesake cult claims thousands of followers in Latin America. This cleansing ritual, held during believers’ annual pilgrimage to Venezuela’s Cerro de Sorte, is known as a velación.

Photograph by Amy Toensing

November 2013

Egypt—In the Sinai Peninsula city of Saint Catherine, members of a Bedouin bride’s family—and the groom—celebrate with an impromptu dance after the wedding.

Amazonas-Contact Press Images

October 2013

Sebastião Salgado, South Georgia, 2009—Two black-browed albatrosses nestle in their colony. This monochrome image and the two that follow are from the photographer’s Genesis book project. In 32 countries over eight years, he documented “what is still pristine ... what we must hold and protect.”

Amazonas-Contact Press Images

October 2013

Sebastião Salgado, Siberia, Russia, 2011—The Nenets—40,000-plus indigenous herders—have been called the real cowboys of Siberia. Though losing their land and being pressured to settle, many still move their reindeer 620 miles each year, from winter pastures to summer grazing land, then back.

Amazonas-Contact Press Images

October 2013

Sebastião Salgado, Papua, Indonesia, 2010—Living in the rugged Jayawijaya Mountains, the tribal Yali were shielded from modernity until the 1970s. In this ceremonial scene men cook pigs in an oven—stones heated by firewood, then placed in a pit—while women collect leaves to flavor food.

Photograph by Caleb Charland

September 2013

United States—Wedges of an orange generate enough current and electrical juice—3.5 volts—to power an LED. The fruit’s citric acid helps electrons flow from galvanized nails to copper wire in this 14-hour exposure.

Photograph by Martin Rietze

September 2013

Japan—Magma bombs explode, forked lightning flashes, and ash clouds billow as the 3,665-foot-tall Sakurajima volcano erupts in Kyushu. Dried lava flows from a massive blast in 1914 connect the former island to the Osumi Peninsula.

Photograph by Chang Ming Chih

September 2013

Taiwan—Drawn to the sulfuric fire of a hand-lit acetylene torch, mackerel leap en masse into the nets of a boat near New Taipei City. A few elderly fishermen—working at night from May to September—are the last practitioners of this fishing technique.

Photograph by Reiner Riedler, Anzenberger

August 2013

Germany—Brandenburg is balmy if you’re in Tropical Islands, a theme park housed in a 710,000-square-foot former aircraft hangar. Although the temperature in this pleasure dome is a perpetual 79°F, light levels vary due to a section of transparent roof panels.

Photograph by Louis-Marie Preau

August 2013

France—A Eurasian beaver heads for her lodge in the Loire River, hauling a poplar branch for supper. A century ago hunting had nearly wiped out this species: Just 1,200 were left. Today a million of these protected rodents thrive, mostly in Europe.

Photograph by Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk

August 2013

Belgium—The chance of indoor clouds is 100 percent wherever artist Berndnaut Smilde goes. Here, one of his fleeting nimbuses—made when he mixes moisture and smoke with dramatic lighting—hovers in a centuries-old castle near Lanaken.

Photograph by Suren Manvelyan

July 2013

Armenia—Beauty is in the beheld eye of a 16-year-old boy in Yerevan. In this highly magnified view of his iris’s surface architecture, the central black pool is the pupil, and his lashes are reflected by the cornea. His eyelids appear as pink rims at top and bottom.

Photograph by Justyna Mielnikiewicz

July 2013

Iran—Visitors inspect a ruined dakhma, or tower of silence, near Yazd. In the Zoroastrian tradition, dead bodies—believed to be in danger of contamination—were left on these raised, circular structures, to be purified by vultures and the elements.

Photograph by Eye of Science/Science Source

July 2013

Germany—A color-enhanced electron microscope photo reveals a half-millimeter-long tardigrade in moss. Called water bears, these eight-legged, alien-looking invertebrates can survive extreme pressure, radiation, and temperatures—and years without food.

Photograph by Max Forsythe

June 2013

China—Like figures in a shadow theater, mannequin forms—illuminated by bare incandescent bulbs and veiled by a red tarpaulin—captivate shoppers in Guilin. The city’s popular night market sells clothing, trinkets, food, and more.

Poland—As shadows lengthen near sunset, spring fields near Nowe erupt in a color riot. The photographer paraglided over Pomerania to get this abstract expressionist shot: a brushstroke of red poppy weeds flowering amid green grain sprouts.

Photograph by Tatiana Ilina

May 2013

Russia—A rainbow of hula hoops swirls around Svetlana Pavlova, a dancer in a traveling circus troupe of short-statured performers who call themselves the Light of the Little Stars.

Photograph by Rob Leeson, Newspix/Rex USA

May 2013

Australia—Anzac the kangaroo and Peggy the wombat—each about five months old—snuggle at the Wildabout Wildlife Rescue Centre in Kilmore, Victoria. Both animals’ mothers were killed by cars. Officials hope to return them to the wild eventually.

Photograph by Charlie Riefel, AP Images

May 2013

United States—Fireworks flash across a full moon on the third of July, part of early Independence Day celebrations last year at Pierson Park in Kansas City, Kansas.

Photograph by Rebecca Norris Webb

April 2013

United States—An image of Wyoming’s Devils Tower monolith works as wordless signage for the Tower Stool Company of Faith, South Dakota. Local artist Norman Blue Arm painted the mural on the firm’s garage door.

Photograph by Liu Bolin, Eli Klein Fine Art

April 2013

China—Invisibility becomes art at a Beijing sawmill in an image from Liu Bolin’s “Hiding in the City” series. For each photograph the artist sports painstakingly painted camouflage. Then assistants position his body so that he disappears from view.

Photograph by Janne Parviainen

April 2013

Finland—A kitchen appears charged with energy—actually lines of LED light scribbled by the photographer during a 24-minute exposure. The supine figure on the floor moved away after a short time, leaving only her electric outline.

United States—Startled fish scatter as Ironman athletes begin the triathlon’s first leg off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. Competitors have up to 17 hours to finish the race: a 2.4-mile open-water swim, followed by 112 miles of bicycling and a 26.2-mile run.

Photograph by Phil Yeomans, Bournemouth News and Picture Service

March 2013

England—Just four days old and 2.5 inches long, an abandoned
hoglet—as baby hedgehogs are often called—snuggles up to a folded towel at a rescue center in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Warmth and cleanliness are vital to keeping the tiny animals healthy.

Photograph by Oded Balilty, AP Images

March 2013

Israel—At an ultra-Orthodox Jewish wedding near Tel Aviv, Viznitz Hasidim gather around the chief rabbi (center, in white) and the groom (center, left). Men and women stay on separate sides of the wedding hall during the ten-hour ceremony.

Photograph by Cancan Chu, Getty Images

February 2013

China—Frigid festivities abound at the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in northeastern China. Here a swimmer pumps up enthusiasm before plunging into a pool carved out of the frozen Songhua River.

Photograph by Stephen Dalton, NHPA/Photoshot

February 2013

England—Sporting feathery gills, a Mexican axolotl, about six inches long, paddles around a West Sussex fish tank. The unusual salamander species, whose numbers are dwindling in the wild, retains its larval features as an adult.

Photograph by Reed Young

February 2013

Italy—A plastic marlin head—possibly a cast replica—makes a curious companion for fish enthusiast Maria Agnese Cornaro, of Canelli. She received the head as a gift years ago, after hosting a town exhibition of people’s aquariums.

Photograph by David Bowman

January 2013

United States—Like a spaceship gearing up to lift off, a carnival ride throws off orbs of light in this panoramic time exposure. The whirling captures the revelry of a summer’s eve at the Minnesota State Fair.

Photograph by Dan Kitwood, Getty Images

January 2013

Benin—At a vodun celebration in Ouidah, sequined masquerades known as Egungun embody the spirits of ancestors with ties to Nigeria’s Yoruba culture. Some masked spirits bless the living; others entertain with intricate dances.

Photograph by Christopher Swann, Biosphoto

January 2013

Atlantic Ocean—Swelling to more than 30 feet across, a school of blue jack mackerel achieves a harmony that belies its purpose: safety from predators. The fish broke apart and reformed off the Azores as dolphins, birds, and sharks pecked away at the pack.